Snow Cover

It’s a sunny day over much of the upper-midwest this afternoon. Therefore, most of the “white” you see in the image below is snow cover. I thought it would give you all a perspective on who has snow and who doesn’t. This image is from 1945Z or 2:45 PM CDT.

If you look carefully you can see a “dark spot” where Fargo is, land use changes around the city give us a different albedo and in turn warmer temperatures than surrounding more snow covered areas. This is more pronounced in the Twin Cities, but they were cloudy when this image was taken. The darker areas in northern Minnesota is the “pine forested” areas. Bemidji was around 50? today, warmer than the prairie areas and attributed to their lower albedo, more of the Sun’s energy being absorbed by the darker trees. These are factors I take into account when I forecast the high temperatures for different cities this time of year.

Related

Post navigation

ABOUT

Like any meteorologist, John Wheeler is intrigued by extremes of weather, especially arctic air outbreaks and winter storms. John says he prefers his summers to be hot but in winter, he prefers the cold. John has been a meteorologist at WDAY since May 1985.